Amazing Grazing: A Public and Private Partnership to Stimulate Grazing Practices in Intensive Dairy Systems

Abstract

In many intensive dairy regions in northwest Europe, a decline in grazing is observed. In the Netherlands, the proportion of dairy cows with access to pasture is declining, as well as the time spent grazing per cow. The decline in grazing is seen as an unwanted trend by many stakeholders and is, thus, under debate amongst dairy farmers, the dairy chain, and society. Therefore, a public–private partnership was initiated to encourage grazing by providing farmers with usable means of improving their grazing systems. The partnership involved stakeholders from the dairy farming community, dairy and feed industry, agrotechnical industries, advisory services, and research. The objective of this partnership was to develop and stimulate technological innovations and management measures that increase fresh grass intake at pasture. The innovation network combined an integrated research approach with farmer working groups and broader stakeholder interactive meetings. The project started with a comprehensive grass intake framework, which was the foundation for exploration of innovations. The framework consisted of six interlinked components: soil, grass growth, grass supply, grass intake, feed supplementation, and cow behavior. In a continuous interactive cycle, strategic choices were made to focus on potentially effective innovations. The use of a public–private partnership to develop usable innovations that encourage grazing practices proven to be a good approach to develop a shared vision among stakeholders. It provided a basis to work together toward innovative practices and to disseminate the outcomes to the foreseen users. The approach succeeded in design concepts for two specific innovations, i.e., weekly grass growth predictions and daily fresh grass intake tracking. We demonstrated that meaningful grazing and fresh grass intake are possible in intensive dairy systems with high stocking rates and high levels of supplementary feeding.

Intensification of Grassland-Based Dairy Production and Its Impacts on Land, Nitrogen and Phosphorus Use Efficiencies

“…Grazing intensity was negatively related to the intensity of milk production (Table 1). The decline in grazing in intensive grassland-based dairy systems across EU-28 is seen as an unwanted trend [67,68] . In response, FrieslandCampina is now rewarding the milk from dairy farms where the cows graze for ≥ 720 h•yr −1 .…”

Toward Specialized or Integrated Systems in Northwest Europe: On-Farm Eco-Efficiency of Dairy Farming in Germany

“…Within the hierarchy of current developments in the dairy sector, there are discussions about whether a trend back to pasture-based production systems would contribute to reduced environmental impacts and more resilient farming systems in northwest Europe (Schils et al, 2019). The revenue of a dairy farm depends on the market price for milk, and the share of home-grown feed and use of external resources, like supplements.…”

Review: New feeds and new feeding systems in intensive and semi-intensive forage-fed ruminant livestock systems

“…the United States, in which grazed grass is used primarily for beef production, with relatively little used for other livestock types ( Peters et al, 2014 ), and, e.g. north-west Europe, where grazed grass is used more widely for dairy cows (although this is in decline as more animals are kept permanently housed; Schils et al, 2019 , van den Pol-van Dasselaar et al, 2020 ), mean that measures of system efficiency can also be very different depending on the metrics used to judge it. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an approach that enables more holistic and objective comparisons between different systems, allowing investigation of trade-offs and downstream effects and impacts.…”